Studies of parton distributions at a neutrino factory

Abstract

The determination of parton distribution functions in the nucleon and nuclei is important for obtaining precise hadron-reaction cross sections, from which any new exotic signature could be found. We show that a future neutrino factory could provide important information on the parton distributions. First, a recent effort concerning the parametrization of nuclear parton distributions is explained. It suggests that the factory should be important for determining unknown behavior of valence-quark distributions in nuclei at small $x$. Second, the facility could be used for understanding nucleon spin structure and isospin violation in the parton distributions.

Comments: 1+3 pages, LaTeX2e, elsart.cls, wrapfig.sty, 1 eps figure. Talk given at the Third International Workshop on Neutrino Factories based on Muon Storage Rings (NuFACT'01), May 24 - 30, 2001, Tsukuba, Japan. To be published in proceedings. Email: kumanos@cc.saga-u.ac.jp, WWW: http://hs.phys.saga-u.ac.jp